The field of the invention is medical appliances and the invention relates more particularly to nasal cannula assemblies.
Nasal cannula assemblies have found widespread use to provide oxygen or other gasses to a patient frequently over a relatively long period of confinement. Such assemblies have widely replaced oxygen masks and provide much greater comfort than nasal catheters. The use of such devices has proved sufficiently beneficial so that they are widely used not only by respiratory patients, but also for a wide variety of patients who require less energy to breathe with the added oxygen supplied by such assemblies.
Because of the resulting patient benefit, such assemblies are often used over a relatively long period of time and such use can cause irritation and discomfort, particularly above and behind the patient's ears. This discomfort can reach severe proportions and result in sores similar to bed sores which make it very difficult to continue using the assembly. At the present time, the typical solution is to remove the assembly from around the ears and temporarily place it over the patient's head but this, also, causes discomfort at the point where it is supported and, also, can provide additional strain at the location of the cannula.